Also, I do wonder if the Murder League has had any business with Omega and the Terminus among others.

Some of the Annihilists (possibly even Shadivan) have made use of their services in the past, but Omega himself does not engage in commercial transactions, period. Omega rarely even deigns to talk to beings who don't serve him body and soul.

Tia'Kim Moc Thranen, born on one of the many colony worlds of the Lor Republic and raised on Magna-Lor once her enormous psychic potential was discovered, was slow to adapt to the comparative freedom offered by her course of study on Earth, at the Claremont Academy. For the first year of her tour of duty, she acted as though she was still in the military back home, referring to all faculty and staff as 'sir'. (It was as close as her linguasoft could get to the unisex term for 'superior' used in Lorcan.) While she did start to calm down a bit in her second year, she was still very slow to make friends or socialize.

It probably didn't help that her powers were actually growing faster than the most optimistic projections of her trainers on Magna-Lor. She wasn't sure whether it was something in the environment or the different techniques used by the faculty on Earth, but keeping her abilities under control ate up a great deal of her time. "Kim" found herself particularly fright-- concerned that any strong emotion on her part could unleash her telekinesis, and so deliberately cultivated a very cold, rigidly logical persona, drawing more than a bit of inspiration from one of the more prominent mentats in Earthly media. She even found herself raising an eyebrow and murmuring 'fascinating' at times.

She was finally starting to think that she might have enough self-control to be able to engage in social activities, in early 2010, when Captain Photon contacted her. The apparent superheroine was in fact the Lor starship Captain Vah-Tan, and she'd been monitoring Tia'Kim's studies for some time, even though she was not in the younger woman's chain of command. Vah-Tan was forthright with Kim, laying out the facts that she'd discovered -- sometime in the next century and a half, the Republic would fall and a Terran-dominated Confederacy would eventually rise in its place. To prevent that, and to end the Republic's growing degeneration, Vah-Tan intended to conquer Earth and add it to the Republic. And Tia'Kim was going to help her.

This was well outside the mission parameters of Kim's assignment on Earth, and she strongly doubted that Vah-Tan had the approval of any of the civilian or military authorities back home to conduct such a campaign. But, nonetheless, she was a superior, and obedience to superiors had been carefully drilled into her during the initial phases of her training. So Tia'Kim followed the orders she was given, and assisted in taking the Freedom League prisoner. She then came under attack by the Next Gen, and the combination of her own reluctance to harm people she'd actually met and their teamwork spelled her defeat, and, eventually, the downfall of Van-Tan's plans.

Vah-Tan and Tia'Kim were both taken into custody and held prisoner by the Freedom League for most of a year. During this time, Kim developed something of a wary friendship with Crater, who visited her in her prison. Eventually, a Lor Naval vessel arrived to take the two renegades back to the Republic for judgment. That was the last time either of them was seen by any Earth resident, though a message eventually arrived from Magna-Lor for Crater, telling him that Tia'Kim had been found not guilty of any charges, and that she was now a fully commissioned mentat.

That message arrived carried by the fleet of refugees from the Republic's fall. It is very likely that Tia'Kim Moc Thranen was on Magna-Lor when it was destroyed by Collapsar. She would not have fled the last battle of the Republic she loved and swore to serve. Beyond any reasonable doubt, she was one of the billions who died that day. Ironically, Captain Vah-Tan is known to command a vessel of the Stellar Imperium ...

Also, I do wonder if the Murder League has had any business with Omega and the Terminus among others.

Some of the Annihilists (possibly even Shadivan) have made use of their services in the past, but Omega himself does not engage in commercial transactions, period. Omega rarely even deigns to talk to beings who don't serve him body and soul.

Yeah, I bet even Woundmaker would feel like shitting his britches in the face of Omega.

By now, Crystal Gaithers can barely even remember being the spoiled, selfish child she was before she destroyed her grandmother's dream catcher and was caught up in a mystical explosion that left her a changed girl. In the early days, whenever the beast that slumbered within her awoke, she'd spend the experience having nightmares about callous or even cruel things that she'd done, but those dreams have all faded as she's grown more comfortable in her compassionate nature, and as Ripper also changed and grew from a mindless thrill-seeker into an entity that sought to protect Crystal from all the dangers she encounters.

There've been a lot of those dangers, especially since Crystal joined the Alterniteens. It began as almost something of a lark, after she made friends with Samantha 'Relentless' Capote and learned about the terrible world she'd escaped from and the team's mission to rescue teenagers and children from other broken or dangerous worlds. That was the noblest goal Crystal had ever even imagined, and she jumped at the chance to work with Relentless and her brother, Dauntless.

Time makes colder, children get older, and by now Crystal is the only member of that particular grouping of super-powered teens who remains. She's seen friends fall, and watched other friends find happy endings on Earth-Prime or elsewhere in the omniverse. She's romanced beautiful blue skinned princes, and fought some of the most dangerous beings in any reality. She keeps on going, because the job will never not need doing, but is somewhat aware of the irony of a twenty-something woman leading a group that's supposed to be made up of teenagers. She's keeping an eye out for a younger hero who can do her job so that she can gracefully retire to a more advisory role.

But even if she finds one, it's fairly likely that she won't turn over the reigns of command just now, while the team is caught in the middle of the crosstime "hot" war between the realities of Alpha and the realm of Istvatha V’han. Owing to the 'understanding' that the Alterniteens have with Alpha's Committee on Law Enforcement, they are nominally on Alpha's side of the affray, and were notably responsible for fighting off an attack on Paris-Alpha. The entire situation is something of a distraction from their mission, in Navigatrix's opinion, but Crystal isn't willing to just ignore the conflict, either ... even if they've discovered evidence which suggests that Alpha deliberately provoked the war with V'han by trying to trick the Imperium into attacking their rival, Prime.

Ripper, of course, has no opinion about any of this. There's that which tries to harm Crystal and those she cares about, and that which is no threat to them. The former will get ripped to shreds by the most expeditious means possible. It's never ripped an Empress of a Billion Worlds before, and somewhat looks forward to the experience.

Hope Rogers did not want to attend Claremont Academy. Hope Rogers did not want to be on the same planet as Claremont Academy, coming as she had from Erde, the nightmare world where the Axis powers had conquered the world. She wanted to be back on her own world, fighting against the evil that had destroyed her family and so many others. But a great deal of effort had been expended to get her where she was, and so she resolved to adapt and overcome, taking advantage of the training she was being given and eventually using it to get herself back where she belonged.

She made several attempts, notably joining the Alterniteens for a mission which she then attempted to redirect to Erde. None of her efforts got her where she wanted to be, and her frustration -- and isolation from the other students around her -- grew each time. She seemed somewhat oblivious to the fact that she was performing extremely well on her practical examinations and coming to the attention of a number of mentors, with Duncan Summers taking a personal interest in her development.

She was likewise somewhat oblivious to the fact that, when she was sent on a class field trip to Pennsylvania, security was deliberately sabotaged to allow her to get loose and seek out the region on Earth-Prime which served as the counterpart to her home. Even if she had realized that something was up, she might have been distracted from that realization by how startled she was to realize that exact duplicates of her family existed on this world, as semi-prosperous land-owning farmers instead of serfs assigned to this plot of land. She was still trying to work out the implications when, sneaking around the farm, she ran into her own counterpart, likewise sneaking around to go out and meet her boyfriend.

For a harrowing moment, Hope found herself considering the best way to murder her counterpart and take her place. Then the sheer vileness of the thought overcame her and she collapsed in tears, adding to the already considerable confusion that her double was already feeling. The two young women were eventually able to come to an understanding, and Hope accompanied her counterpart on her excursion, posing as the other girl's identical cousin. In the process of the evening's entertainment, the group of teenagers ran into some trouble with a group of outlaw bikers, and Hope ended up leading her 'cousin' and friends into a rumble, of all things.

The bikers were driven off, but it was clear that they'd eventually come back seeking revenge. It had only been one battle in a much larger war, and for the first time, Hope found herself understanding the way the leaders of the resistance had to look at things -- including the way that looked at how she fought every battle as if she didn't care if it were her last. Meeting with her counterparts' parents and siblings, so like her own lost family, helped her to finally start grieving for them and coping with the guilt she felt for having survived.

Duncan Summers showed up to pick Hope up about a day later, and they spent a long while talking on the plane back to Freedom City. Her attempts to sneak back to Erde stopped that day, and she focused entirely on developing her skills and her power -- especially the latter, working to minimize its side effect. By the time that she graduated, in 2011, she was no longer even occasionally knocked out by shorting out machinery, and she went back to her world with the intention of living to see the end of the war, and the determination to truly be Agent Hope.

Even more than most of the students that the Alterniteens brought to Claremont, Francoise Gravois was inclined to view Earth-Prime as a paradise compared to what she'd experienced before. She had the unique experience of being a student at Claremont's dark parallel, and suffered frequent nightmares about what she'd done to others and had done to her while she was there. She came to the very certain conclusion that she never wanted to return to her homeworld, under any circumstances, and would die before she'd go back.

Which complicated matters quite a bit, because she'd been sent to Earth-Prime by Anti-Earth's greatest (and only) superhero, Mind-master, with the intention of having her learn the skills she would need to become a soldier in his never-ending struggle for civilization, justice and compassion. Francoise, having abandoned a life of training to be a soldier for the Tyranny Syndicate, wanted none of it. Mind-master attempted to insist on the issue, but found himself opposed by the Alterniteens and the Next-Gen, including Centuria on one of her first missions with the latter. Ultimately, Mind-master was persuaded to let Caryatid be, but declared that he would never cooperate with Earth-Prime heroes again as a consequence.

That was not, in Francoise's opinion, her problem. After graduating from Claremont, she set out to see the rest of Earth-Prime. She soon found that most places in the world were not quite as bright or hopeful as the parts of Freedom City she'd seen, but even the worst places, the ones that reminded her of Anti-Earth, could be understood as aberrations from the norm. It was a beautiful world, and she was happy to do what she could to protect it and help out the people there when she came across problems that a geokinetic could solve.

It wasn't until 2014 that she ran into trouble that she couldn't handle on her own. She'd heard about Granite of the Factor Four, but when she actually met the other earth elemental while passing through Bhutan, he seemed friendly, even expressing an interest in going straight. It was of course a ruse, and Francoise walked right into the Factor Four's trap. Professor Fathom planned to use his technology to transfer Caryatid's geokinetic and stone-shifting powers into Granite, possibly using what he learned in the process to give all the Factor Four the ability to shift to and from their elemental forms. Francoise was not intended to survive the experience.

Fortunately, Charlie Graham and the mage Zalman had been in the area when Caryatid was kidnapped, and followed the kidnappers back to their temporary base in time to rescue Francoise from the machine and send the Four running. While embarrassed at having had to be rescued again, Caryatid decided that the safest place on Earth-Prime at the moment was probably wherever these two were, and travelled with them for a time. In the process, she found herself talking about her origins with the two of them.

Zalman observed that there was something a bit strange about the process that Professor Fathom had been using, which resembled magic known to him that would drain a child's power into a parent, or vice versa. Of course, there was no way that Granite could be Francoise's father, as she'd been born in another reality entirely ... but it came to her, then, that she really knew very little about her own history. Francoise asked Zalman to use his magic to communicate with Mind-Master. After a short conversation involving Charlie's inimitable negotiating skills, Mind-Master wearily agreed to reveal all that he knew about Caryatid's history if she would agree to help him on Anti-Earth for two years, instead of the never-ending battle he'd originally proposed.

Francoise reluctantly agreed to those terms, and thanked the two wanderers before journeying though a gate established by Mind-Master. To his credit, the Eternal Champion turned over all the information before sending her off on any missions. It turned out that she was in fact the daughter of the William Cole of Anti-Earth, who (unlike his counterpart) had possessed the power to transform to and from stone and fought alongside his three friends as revolutionaries against the Praetor in the 1980s. He and his fellow Prime Elements had died not long after Francoise was born, and she had been snatched up to be raised in the Academy.

Discovering that she has a connection to genuine heroism on Anti-Earth has done a bit to change Caryatid's views of her homeworld, as has encountering the tiny points of light that manage to shine despite the darkness of the Tyranny Syndicate's rule. She's honestly not sure if she's going to return to Earth-Prime when her contract with Mind-Master runs out next year, or if she'll renew their arrangement. Of course, she has to survive another year in hell before she makes that decision, which is by no means a sure thing. In particular, Maximillian Adamov, who uses her father's skull as a stein, has expressed an interest in having a smaller one to match the set.

After a short conversation involving Charlie's inimitable negotiating skills, Mind-Master wearily agreed to reveal all that he knew about Caryatid's history if she would agree to help him on Anti-Earth for two years, instead of the never-ending battle he'd originally proposed.

That poor man had no idea what he was in for when he tried to negotiate with Charlie ;~)

That being said it'll be interesting to see if Caryatid actually gets the chance to return when her two years are up...

Fortunately, Charlie Graham and the mage Zalman had been in the area when Caryatid was kidnapped, and followed the kidnappers back to their temporary base in time to rescue Francoise from the machine and send the Four running.

The adventures of Charlie and Zalman.
Their opponents will be Friended, Frightened, or fought, but no matter how you look at it they're "F"ed. ;~)

The excitement that Xymert Fel Sarlyn felt at being smuggled off of Utopia Island and into Claremont Academy didn't last very long, being soon replaced by a profound homesickness and a sense that his abilities had never been adequately tested by Utopian standards. The lonely youth underperformed in his examinations, perhaps unconsciously seeking to flunk out so that he would have to return to Utopia, and made few friends. Despite this, it was recognized that he was one of the kindest, gentlest students at the academy, and so somewhat popular despite himself.'

Things started to look up for Xymert when he was sought out by Samot of Farside City, who wanted him to join the team of students from the hidden lands that he was forming. Impressed by Samot's charisma, Xymert agreed, despite his suspicion that he'd be of very little use and his extreme discomfort at being part of a team called 'the Envoys'. The team didn't last very long, but while it did, he was able to form lasting friendships with the other members, most notably with Zarana of the Lost World, who equalled him in ability but was much more confident in its use.

With Zarana's encouragement, Xymert started to perform better on examinations, and found himself starting to grow into the sort of hero his father and mother had believed that he could be. But the activities of the short-lived team of Envoys had not gone unnoticed, and a small group of Utopians were sent to Freedom City to retrieve the runaway, clashing with the Next Gen in the process. After defeating several of the guardians sent after him, Xymert agreed to return to Utopia to prevent further violence, but his friends insisted on accompanying them to make sure that he wasn't punished too harshly.

Even the faction of the Utopian Council that believed that the time had come to send a new Envoy into the outside world was not pleased that Xymert and Sarlyn had acted so precipitously. The party of Sarlyn's rival Kylann was arguing that Sarlyn should be expelled from the Council as a consequence. To protect his father, Xymert insisted that the entire plan had been his own idea, and that the consequences of that plan should fall solely on him ... but he also argued that Utopia's secrecy hadn't been imperiled until the guardians had been sent after him. The questioning of the Next Gen confirmed this, somewhat easing the concerns of much of the council.

Eventually, the decision was made. The Council chose to consider Xymert's actions to be the start of an Envoy mission, recognizing his ability to defeat several guardians as evidence of his worthiness to perform such a mission. However, in the absence of a discrete emergency -- such as World War II -- which could, if ended, mark the end of the Envoy's mission, it was also decided that this would have to be a longer term mission than Sarlyn's had been. In essence, Xymert was now the Envoy -- and he was exiled from Utopia for a period of not less than twenty years. Should the secret of Utopia be exposed in that time, the exile would be for the rest of his life.

Given just enough time to say farewell to his parents and siblings, Xymert travelled back to Claremont with the Next Gen. He completed his training there, graduated, and then departed to fulfill his mission of learning as much as possible about the world. His journeys have mostly taken him through South America and Africa, though he also wants to travel in Asia and the Pacific. The grief he feels at the loss of contact with his family is considerable, but he is determined not to allow Councillor Kylann, whose hand can be clearly seen in all of this, break him. He will protect both Utopia and the world in which Utopia exists, and one day, he will return home.

Meanwhile, Kylann is plotting the destruction of the outside world, and views the death of her old enemy's son as the cream of the jest ...

After a short conversation involving Charlie's inimitable negotiating skills, Mind-Master wearily agreed to reveal all that he knew about Caryatid's history if she would agree to help him on Anti-Earth for two years, instead of the never-ending battle he'd originally proposed.

That poor man had no idea what he was in for when he tried to negotiate with Charlie ;~)

That being said it'll be interesting to see if Caryatid actually gets the chance to return when her two years are up...

Wellll ... Mind-Master views his sworn word as inviolable, and he has Mastermind's hatred of cruelty and torture to an even higher degree, so while he intends to use every possible incentive to get her to stay, if she's dead set on leaving Anti-Earth, he won't force her to remain. But if the portal happened to be non-functional, or they couldn't use it for fear of being discovered ... things would be different, wouldn't they?

Marius Agrippa was a fairly poor fit at Claremont Academy from the very beginning. Having already gone through intensive training since he was a child, he was at best amused by the physical conditioning of even the top-ranked students at the academy, and viewed actual superhumans as employing 'cheats'. Furthermore, unlike many of the so-called exchange students who came to the school from other worlds, his goal was not to become the first of a new generation of superheroic protectors for Terra-Roma, but to gain even greater fame for himself.

Perhaps the greatest difference between himself and the rest of the students was his attitude towards violence. While the gladiatorial games of modern Terra Roma were no longer generally fought to the death, accidents still happened, particularly in training, and Marius had been familiar with bloody death from his earliest years. Life was not something he held particularly sacred, and he was frequently disciplined by the faculty for excessive force during training sessions or while fighting crime.

He was not exactly given a choice in the matter when it came to joining the Alterniteens. The negotiations between Navigatrix and the agents of the Eternal Republic involved matters well above his paygrade, such as permission for his activities with the team to be recorded constantly in exchange for the rights to use Terra-Roma as a secondary staging area for the team's mission of omniversal exploration. The only thing that he really cared about when it came to the deal was that he was issued a pair of jump boots, so as to make his fights that much more visually appealing.

Until the end of his time at Claremont, he served loyally but more or less dispassionately with the Alterniteens, being genuinely helpful in their missions but clearly not caring at all whether they succeeded as long as he looked good. He was honest enough to admit that the experiences assisted him in training for situations that his manager could never have imagined, and that he had grown as a fighter as a result. But gratitude was something fairly foreign to his personality.

The conclusion of his time at Claremont was marked by Agent Hope deciding that she'd had enough of Gladiator's crap and challenging him to a final duel. He accepted and was more than a bit put out when, after she shorted out his gadgets and armor, she actually managed to knock him out after a hard-fought bare knuckle brawl. When he recovered, he was actually humble for about five seconds before insisting that if Hope had been outfitted appropriately, rather than cheating with her powers, it would have been an entirely different story.

After graduation, Marius returned to Terra-Roma and entered the adult branch of the International Gladiatorial League. He has made no attempt to contact any of his former allies in the Alterniteens, though he is clearly still alive and quite famous on Terra-Roma.
Gladiator -- PL 10

Marius Agrippa was a fairly poor fit at Claremont Academy from the very beginning. Having already gone through intensive training since he was a child, he was at best amused by the physical conditioning of even the top-ranked students at the academy, and viewed actual superhumans as employing 'cheats'. Furthermore, unlike many of the so-called exchange students who came to the school from other worlds, his goal was not to become the first of a new generation of superheroic protectors for Terra-Roma, but to gain even greater fame for himself.

Perhaps the greatest difference between himself and the rest of the students was his attitude towards violence. While the gladiatorial games of modern Terra Roma were no longer generally fought to the death, accidents still happened, particularly in training, and Marius had been familiar with bloody death from his earliest years. Life was not something he held particularly sacred, and he was frequently disciplined by the faculty for excessive force during training sessions or while fighting crime.

Plus not it’s as if Roman culture in general, even on a parallel timeline, was exactly sunshine and rainbows.